I'd like to add a special welcome to new students who've recently signed up for our Creative Sketchbooks online course. It's lovely to have you join us.

Over on the DMTV blog you'll find Laura's posted some helpful tips for drawing objects with highly polished surfaces. Tackling those reflections can be tricky but with careful observation you'll find you can get great results. This post is written with our Creative Sketchbook students in mind, but we've posted this free mini lesson on the blog for everyone to read and we hope even if you're not taking our course that you'll find it useful. We'll be adding more posts along these lines over the next few weeks so do look out for them if you're keen on drawing, painting and sketchbook work.

If you've been thinking about signing up for Creative Sketchbooks, now's a great time to join in. When you start, we send you an art kit in the post with a sketchbook and other items to help you get started. We've checked the last posting dates for Christmas delivery and for Australia and New Zealand it is December 9th. If you're tempted to sign up you can read more about Creative Sketchbooks over on the website. We hope you might decide to take the plunge!

New video workshop on DesignMatters TV

Fabric Art Diary: Applique

My Fabric Art Diary is growing daily and this week I'll show you how I'm using bonded appliqué to add designs to the pages. Don't worry though, if you're not making an art diary, I think you'll still love this method for art quilting too. In the video workshop I'll demonstrate how I translated a drawing from my sketchbook and get just the same look with fabric and stitch.

If you're working along do post photos in the DMTV Gallery or share on social media and tag us won't you?

The video workshop is for members only but if you haven't signed up already we'd love to have you join us now. Just choose 'Membership Videos' from the menu and you'll see 30+ titles in the current playlist.

Laura's been busy in the studio this week. If you've not checked in over on her blog for a while do take a look. She's been posting about the painting she worked on at Festival of Quilts and dramatic change it's undergone. As you can see in the photo below it involved the use of a saw!

We love patchwork but, like so many people, our time is limited so we're always looking for a fast way to get the results we need.

In this Archive collection of three workshops we'll show you three essential fast piecing methods for some of the most useful blocks in patchwork:

Fast Flying Geese

Speedy Tumbling Blocks

Easy Half Square Triangles.

These methods are great for using up scraps and busting through that stash!

As with all our DMTV Archive Collections, you can add them to your Library for instant, lifetime access. They represent great value, this collection of 3 workshops is only £4.50. You don't need to be a DMTV Member to purchase Archives, you can simply make a one-off purchase.